Former President Donald Trump is making himself heard a lot in the run-up to the midterm elections next week. ‘It shows that he himself and especially his ideas are not a thing of the past.’ What does that mean for the 2024 presidential election?
His name is not on the ballots and he holds no official position within the Republican party. Yet he is ubiquitous in the run-up to the midterm elections in the United States: Donald Trump. Still the man of the party, he will appear all over the country in the run-up to November 8, alongside candidates who can gain his approval. What is Trump’s goal? How big is his influence on the Republican party? And what does that mean for the near future of American democracy?
Trump is testing his power within the party and his popularity with the electorate before deciding whether to run again in 2024, is the mainstream analysis in US media. To push his party in the direction he wants, Trump expressed his support for more than 200 candidates earlier this year during the Republican primaries. This kind of public expression of support by prominent politicians and ex-politicians to party members is not uncommon in the US. The sheer scale at which Trump does that is. By comparison, Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama expressed his support for 18 candidates.
Trump’s role as kingmaker paid off in many cases. The majority of Trump’s candidates won the Republican primary against their opponents who did not have the Trump seal. In some cases, Trump also used such support to thwart political opponents. For example, party prominent Liz Cheney lost her primary in Wyoming to the unknown Harriet Hageman. Cheney is one of ten Republican senators who voted in favor of impeachment following Trump’s co-orchestrated storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Trumpism
In particular, according to political scientist Laurel Harbridge-Yong of Northwestern University, Trump’s prominence in these midterms and the gains of many of his backed candidates in the primary shows “that Donald Trump and especially his ideas are not a thing of the past.” as some people hoped when Biden took over the presidency almost two years ago.
Trumpism has outlived Trump even if for some reason he wouldn’t personally run for a second term in 2024, Harbridge-Yong believes. She points out that the Trump-supported candidates on the Republican electoral lists do not distinguish themselves from other Republicans in the first place in terms of content. They are vehemently against abortion and migration, but so are most Republicans who distance themselves from Trump.
The difference is on a more fundamental, and according to Harbridge-Yong, more dangerous level, namely in their conceptions of democracy. Virtually all candidates who enjoy Trump’s support are convinced that the true winner of the 2020 election is Donald Trump.
“It’s a lie that has led to a significant increase in violence and intimidation against voters over the past two years,” President Biden said in a televised appearance on Wednesday, portraying the election as a struggle for the survival of American democracy (and trying to to distract voters from the inflation so unfavorable for the Democratic campaign.)
Big Lie
After the lost election, Republicans adhering to the Big Lie theory have seen the idea that they must “save their country” by changing the electoral laws in their favor, which has already happened in some Republican states. Others want to go even further and sabotage unwelcome election results.
Elections will also be held in 27 states next Tuesday for the post of election monitor, usually not an overly glamorous position. Now activist Republicans are trying to get as many kindred spirits in office as possible, “to fix the country and make sure Trump is President again in 2024,” he said. The Washington Post Jim Marchant, Nevada Republican Election Supervisor.
Analyst John Hudak of the Brookings Institute political think tank predicts that the midterms will “make or break” Trump’s political future. If the Republican electorate doesn’t support the candidates he’s pushed on Tuesday, it will hurt the former president in the race for the nomination as Republican presidential candidate in 2024. That competition will likely come at least from popular Flordia governor Ron DeSantis and probably also from his former Vice President Mike Pence.
The big question mark is the attitude of the party establishment, especially party leader Mitch McConnell. His attitude towards Trump has been ambiguous for years. For example, in a memorable speech he openly blamed him for the Capitol storming, but then voted against impeachment proceedings. Even now, McConnell seems to be letting Trump run his course, as long as they have the same goal: the biggest possible Republican victory in both houses of Congress next week.
Doug Mastriano, Pennsylvania, Governor
Mastriano (58) is a former soldier. He served in West Germany, close to the Iron Curtain, and a little more recently in Iraq. He entered politics in 2019, inspired by Trump. As a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, he caused a furore with his resistance to the corona restrictions imposed from Washington.
As a convinced antivaxer and mouth cap refuser, Mastriano got thousands of people on their feet. After Trump’s election loss, he personally chartered a number of buses to drive people to the big “Stop the Steal” rally in front of (and later into) the Capitol.
During the Republican primary this spring, Mastriano emphasized his Christian side, speaking in video messages on Facebook about white supremacy. He promised his voters an abortion ban without exceptions and changes to election rules in his state, which would make it more difficult for certain voters (read: black voters) to vote.
But Mastriano’s campaign is not going well, mainly due to lack of funding. One of the larger donations, $400,000, ironically came from his Democratic challenger Josh Shapiro. Many Democrats donated to radical Republican candidates in the primaries in the hope that they would scare off some of the electorate. Shapiro is now 10 percentage points ahead of Mastriano in the polls.
Mark Finchem, Arizona, Election Supervisor
A man with a mustache recently took the stage at a Republican campaign rally in Mesa, Arizona. He took off his white cowboy hat, greeted the crowd. He told the people that they are engaged in a battle “foretold by prophets” with the “wicked” and “satanic” Democrats. Then the next speaker took the stage: Donald Trump. He called Finchem according to The Washington Post approving ‘a warrior’.
Mark Finchem (65) usually doesn’t say much, it seems. When he says something, he almost always says that the actual winner of the 2020 presidential election is called Donald Trump. He believes that all election results in his country are based on fraud.
Finchem is running for the Arizona Secretary of State, a position in which he is primarily responsible for all elections in his state. In that capacity, he could decide, among other things, to reject all voting computers, to introduce manual counts and to move polling stations.
Finchem was present at the storming of the Capitol and was questioned by the Commission of Inquiry. He was banned from Twitter last year because of his incendiary tweets – he liked to lecture against Georg Soros, among other things. Elon Musk personally reversed that ban this week.
Herschel Walker, Georgia, Senator
Herschel Walker, a former American football star, has become living proof in recent weeks that Republican voters sometimes value propagating conservative ideas and principles over living them.
Walker (60), a man with little political experience like many Trump-backed Republicans, is campaigning for “traditional family values.” Which in Republican practice translates to: advocate a strict abortion ban with no exceptions. (In Georgia, the ban already applies from the moment the heartbeat of the embryo can be detected, but there are still exceptions to that rule.)
In September, it was revealed that Walker forced an ex-girlfriend into an abortion in the 1990s and paid for it. Since last week there is a second ex-girlfriend who claims the same. One of his sons has also accused Walker of domestic violence for a few weeks.
Walker denies all allegations. After plummeting in the polls, he and his Democratic opponent Rafael Warnock are now back in a neck-and-neck race. Interestingly, Warnock, an Atlanta preacher, barely addresses the Walker scandals in his campaign.
The winner of the Georgia senate seat could, just like in the 2020 presidential election, determine which party gets the majority.
Mehmet Öz, Pennsylvania, Senator
One Republican who could help his party win a majority in the Senate is Mehmet Öz, 62, of Pennsylvania, better known to most Americans as Dr. oz. Until last year, he ran a weekly talk show where he talked to Americans about medical topics and promoted health products.
Before that, he was a regular guest on Oprah Winfrey’s talk show as a doctor. In 2016, in the run-up to his presidency, Trump was on the air with Öz because doubts had arisen about his health. Öz then had Trump patiently explain, with a letter from his doctor in hand, that despite several pounds overweight, he was in excellent health.
Öz is a conservative Republican, but his views are mild compared to many other Trump-backed candidates. For example, he is an opponent of abortion, but he believes that an exception can be made if the mother’s life is in danger or after rape. Questions about the legitimacy of the 2020 election results, Öz answers evasively.
His opponent, incumbent Democratic Senator John Fetterman, suffered a stroke in May, making him look bad in debates, but pity many voters. Whether that is an advantage or a disadvantage for Öz will become clear on November 8.